LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, U 

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Chap. ..^_^(p^ S 



g^UNITED STATES OF AMERiCA. 




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MEMORIAL ADDRESSES 



ON THE 




\^^^ 



Life and CHARACTEi\ 



FRANK \yELCH, 

( A REPRESENTATIVE FROM NEBRASKA ), I 



(A REPRESENTATIVE 



DELIVERED IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND IN THE SENATE, 
FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION. 



PUBLISHED BV ORDER OF CONGRESS. 



WASHINGTON: 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1879- 






FORTY-FIFTH CONGRESS, THIRD SESSION. 

Congress of the United States, 
In the House of Representatives, February 27, 1879. 
Resolved by the House of Representatives {the Senate concurring), That there be 
printed twelve thousand copies of the memorial addresses delivered in the Senate 
and House of Representatives upon the life and character of the late Frank 
Welch, late a Representative from the State of Nebraska; of which nine thou- 
sand shall be for the use of the House and three thousand for the use of the 
Senate. 
Attest : 

GEO. M. ADAMS, Clerk. 



AX ACT providing for the engraving and printing of portraits to accompany memorial 
addresses on the late Representatives Leonard, Quinn, Welch, Williams, Douglas, Hart- 
ridge, and Schleicher. 

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of 
America in Congress assefnbled, That the Secretary of the Treasury be, and he is 
hereby, authorized and directed to cause to be engraved and printed portraits of the 
late Representatives Leonard, Quinn, Welch, Williams, Douglas, Hartridge, and 
Schleicher, to accompany memorial addresses delivered in the Senate and House of 
Representatives in honor of the said deceased Representatives, and to defray the 
expenses thereof the necessary sum is hereby appropriated out of any money in the 
Treasury not otherwise appropriated, such sum to be immediately available. 

Approved, March 3, 1879. 






ADDRESSES 



ON THE 



Death of Frank Welch 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE HOUSE. 



February 19, 1879. 
On motion of Mr. Sapp, by unanimous consent, 
Ordered, That the memorial services in honor of the late Frank 
Welch, late a Representative from the State of Nebraska, be held 
to-morrow evening, at the session heretofore ordered by the House. 



February 21, 1879. 
Mr. Majors. I ofifer the resolutions which I send to the desk. 
The Clerk read as follows': 

Resolved, That this House has heard with profound regret of the 
death of Hon. Frank Welch, late a Representative from the State 

of Nebraska. 

Resolved, That the House do now suspend the consideration of 
public business, in order to pay proper respect to the memory of the 
lamented deceased. 

Resolved, That in token of regard for the memory of the lamented 
deceased, the members of this House do wear the usual badge of 
mourning for thirty days. 

Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the House do communicate these 
resolutions to the Senate of the United States. 

Resolved, That out of further respect to the memory of the deceased 
this House do now adjourn. 



Address of Mr. Majors, of Nebraska. 

Mr. Speaker : At nine o'clock in the evening of September 4, 
1878, at Neligh, Nebraska, Hon. Frank Welch departed this Hfe, 
the victim of a paralytic stroke. He died in his chair, away from 
home and family. He was surrounded by warm and dear friends, 
but no wife, no relative was near to utter words of cheer as he passed 
into the dark valley. More than a year ago the warning stroke came, 
which, while it did not blast, yet so affected his stalwart frame that 
he never fully recovered his wonted health and vigor. 

Possessing a sanguine disposition, and trusting to the recuperative 
energies of his nature, he refused to spare himself, and entered upon 
and continued his labors in this body with characteristic ardor and 
energy. When he returned home last July his changed appearance 
was marked by his acquaintances, and caused his friends no little 
anxiety. It was thought that the pur© and bracing air of his west- 
ern home, together with needed rest and recreation, would bring back 
the luster to his cheek and restore vigor to his frame. But when hope 
ran highest, when least expected, the lightning again descended and 
consumed the life that was left, remembering that — 

'Tis the twink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, 
From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, 
From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroud, — 
O, why should the spirit of mortal be proud ! 

Mr. Welch died in the meridian of life, at the period of his great 
usefulness as a citizen and public, servant. With large capacity for 
usefulness; with wide, varied experience in public aftairs, and great 
responsibilities on his shoulders, at a time when his inlluence was 
sweeping into a broader arena, when the fervor of youth was still 
in his blood, the shadowy hand beckoned him to his journey across 
tlie dark continent to the land beyond the sun. 



In the beautiful and expressive language of a former member of 
this body : 

We complain that the divine sickle could not wait for its human harvest until the 
whitened and bending heads should incline with the weight of years toward the 
earth which was destined to receive them. 

As IMr. Welch's successor it becomes my duty, as his friend it is 
my privilege, to hold up to public view the record of a life which has 
in it much that is praiseworthy and little that can be censured. Mr. 
Welch was born in Massachusetts in 1835. In childhood his fam- 
ily removed to Boston, where Mr. Welch received his education. 
Adopting the profession of engineering, he came West in 1857 to 
assist in running the line of a projected railway across Iowa, the ter- 
minus of which was to be on the east bank of the Missouri. In 1863 
he married, in Boston, Miss Elizabeth Butts, of Hudson, New York. 
In the mean time he engaged in the mercantile business, which re- 
sulted disastrously. At various times he represented his section of 
country in the Territorial and State legislatures, and in 1865 was 
president of the upper house. In 187 1 he was appointed register of 
the land office at West Point, Nebraska, which position he held until 
1876. In the fall of 1876 his claims were pressed with such enthu- 
siasm by his friends that he received at the hands of the Republican 
State convention the nomination for member of Congress, and after 
a spirited contest was elected by an overwhelming majority, 

Mr. Welch entered Congress in the prime of manhood, when the 
play of his pulse was still healthful, representing as large an expanse 
of country as all New England, and a population of over three hun- 
dred thousand. The demands upon his time and strength were in- 
cessant. The extension of the postal service and keeping up the 
efficiency of the Federal Government to a level with the needs and 
wants of a growing State required his constant attention. Nebraska 
may have had in this body in other days men of greater talent, men 
of broader culture, yet it is doubtful whether any of her Representa- 



ADDRESS OF MR. MAJORS ON THE 



tives ever served her with such fidehty and tireless industry as Mr. 
Welch. 

Mr. Welch was, indeed, a representative man. Though educated 
in the Athens of America, yet he had lived so long in the West, 
almost a quarter of a century, that he might be called a child of the 
prairies. He had stood by the cradle when the young State was 
born ; he had grown with its growth ; his name was in some measure 
identified with its greatness. He knew the needs and wants of his 
people, and was in warm sympathy with their life and purposes. He 
took a pride in the State of his adoption, occupying the midway 
position between the far East and the far West, along which the life 
currents of immigration daily flow. He expected to see the dream 
of one of America's most gifted poets realized, "She is the prairie 
dame, that sitteth in the middle and looketh east and looketh west." 
Hence Mr. Welch was pecuharly fitted to represent the people of 
my State in the national councils. Had he lived, it was the hope of 
his friends, and perhaps his own ambition, that his influence in pub- 
lic affairs, which had hitherto been confined to the limits of his own 
State, might sweep out into broader fields of usefulness; but "death's 
untimely frost" nipped the blossoming hopes of his friends and his 
own budding aspirations. 

Mr. Welch in public life was an eminently useful man. His in- 
fluence was a positive force for good. He reached and controlled 
men in the most practical way. He was no orator. He possessed 
none of the graces of oratory which captivate and conquer public 
assemblies, yet when the occasion was imperative he could put his 
thoughts into the traces of compact expression and utter his ideas 
with force and clearness. " Many are ihe friends of the golden 
tongue," says the Welsh proverb. Frank Welch, however, had 
many friends though he did not possess the golden tongue in the 
sense used. Without marked ability for public speaking, without 
great knowledge of that seasoned life of men stored up in books. 



and little of that ripe culture which comes from meditation in the 
closet, yet Mr. Welch was an influential man. 

He had mingled with and been jostled by men upon the dust-swept 
highway of business life; he had been in close contact with those 
extreme types of character indigenous to frontier life. He had in 
his earlier life known men at the other extreme who had been under 
the intellectual sand-paper too long, and he had thereby acquired that 
practical talent, that ready adaptation of means to ends which reaches 
and controls men and often achieves success when a higher talent 
fails. 

Mr. Welch in private life was an exemplary man. He enjoyed 
life with the keenest zest. While he lived laborious days, yet he did 
not scorn delights of life. Mr. Welch was a man of fine social 
powers; there was a genial magnetism in his presence, a certain 
heartiness in his greeting, a frankness and openness of manner that 
attracted men. 

It was said of the late Lord Holland that he always came down to 
breakfast with the air of a man who had just met with some signal 
good fortune. Mr. Welch possessed a like sunny disposition over 
which the clouds of gloom rarely if ever settled. 

But it was in the sacred precincts of the home circle that his social 
nature shone with the pure luster. It was there that he gave utter- 
ance to the best thoughts of his best soul, and gave full play to the 
kindly emotions of the heart. Upon his hearth-stone the fires of do- 
mestic happiness always burned brightly. In his home, where peace, 
love, and happiness were enthroned, he found both an incentive to 
his ambition and rest from his exciting public labors. 

But the seal of death has been placed upon his life before it had 
attained the ripeness of age. The reed has been broken by an un- 
timely wind. A useful man, an active and vigilant public servant, 
an ornament to society has retreated from the din and turmoil of life 
to the realms beyond. 



It remains for us to move upon the stream of being as if— 
'Tis not all of life to live, 
SO that when the inevitable hour comes we shall find that — 
'Tis not all of death to die. 



Address of Mr. Sapp, of Towa. 

Mr. Speaker : In the death of Hon. Frank Welch, to whose 
memory I would to-day pay a brief tribute, we are called upon to 
mourn the loss of a truly good man. When we met in this Hall at 
the beginning of this session of Congress I am sure the thought was 
present to each of us that one of our number was not here, that one 
seat had been made vacant, and it was then as now hard to realize 
that one so young, so full of hope and honorable ambition when we 
separated a few short months before, had crossed that narrow line 
that divides time from eternity, and that his youthful form and face 
would be seen by us no more forever. It is proper that this House 
suspend its deliberations upon public aftairs at this time that we may 
offer fitting and appropriate tribute to the memory of one so recently 
associated with us. 

It was my ijrivilege, Mr. Speaker, to know Mr. Welch long and 
well. I met him first in the year i860, when, a wanderer from my 
old Ohio home in search of health, I found the home of my adoption 
on the green prairies of the West. In the intervening years a kind 
Providence has permitted me to form many Weirm friendships, but 
there are none I recall more fondly than his. It is not my purpose 
now to speak in detail of the life and character of our lamented friend, 
though his short career furnishes much for a lengthy eulogy. His 
most prominent characteristics were, I think, sound discretion, clear 
discernment, good common-sense, great honesty of purpose, and 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



indomitable energy, and I believe had he been permitted to pass 
through the vicissitudes of a long Hfe he would have met and man- 
fully fulfilled all the duties allotted to him. He inspired all who 
knew hirn with confidence in his honesty, integrity, and honor, and 
compelled the concession that he was both just and generous. 
Guided by his high sense of justice, his reasoning faculties rarely 
failed him in the attainment of truth, which was with him the con- 
trolling principle in both public and private hfe. He was, doubtless, 
not without a commendable desire for worldly distinction ; but that 
desire was always subordinate to his convictions of right. With these 
admirable endowments were happily blended the kindlier affections 
of the heart that endeared him to his friends, and made him in pri- 
vate life the valuable citizen, the aftectionate husband and father, 
and the devoted friend. 

Mr. Welch was a native of Massachusetts, and was born on the 
historic ground of Bunker Hill, February lo, 1835, and was there- 
fore at the time of his death in the forty-fourth year of his age. By 
the death of his father in the tender years of his infancy he was left 
to the care of his remaining parent, who happily for him was one of 
New England's most capable and devoted mothers. She survives 
her lamented son and is doubtless comforted in her great bereave- 
ment that many of her fondest hopes for him were realized before 
his early summons came. He received his education in the pubhc 
schools of his native State, graduating at the high school of Boston. 
He chose the profession of civil engineering, and in this capacity 
was intrusted with several important surveys in the West, after which 
he setded in Nebraska, making it his home from 1857 until his death. 
In his new home he held many places of trust, among which were 
register of the United States land office and member of the legisla- 
tive council, and by which body he was elected as its presiding offi- 
cer. In every station he was called upon to fill he was distinguished 
for his devotion to the cause of truth and justice. 



2 w 



ADDRESS OF MR. WIGGINTON ON THE 



Those who sat with him in the committee'room here will long re- 
member the care with which he gave his counsels and the clearness 
with which he explained them. His fidelity and accuracy were no- 
where more manifest. 

But, sir, he has fallen almost at the threshold of his career, and 
while lamenting that the years of one so full of promise could not 
have been prolonged, yet as he never faltered by the way, and has 
left us so much of good example in the work of his short life so well 
and faithfully performed, we can scarce find it in our hearts to repine 
that he has gone to his rest. We would not again revive the busy 
brain nor again renew the throbbing of that large and generous heart; 
we would not disturb the repose in which he sleeps; but if in the 
solemnity of this call of one whom many of us knew so well we can 
rightly appreciate what such a dispensation is calculated to impart, 
if it shall teach us to realize the comparative insignificance of earthly 
things, if it shall enable us to feel that this transitory life, this brief 
sojourn here is but a step in the series of infinite existences, a mere 
harbor .where we furl our sails before we launch upon the great ocean 
of eternity; if we can more justly estimate ourselves and appreciate 
the duties which each day devolve upon us, then we shall have 
learned from this melancholy event the beneficent lesson which in 
the goodness of Divine Providence it was designed to impart. 

For him, time and earth have passed away; he has departed in 
.the meridian of his manhood, in the midst of the glowing hopes of a 
successful life, like a vigorous tree cut down in the wealth of its sum- 
mer bloom ere the bright green of a single leaf had been seared by 
the blight of autumn. 



/Address of yViR. Wigginton, of Palifoknia. 

Mr. Speaker : There is a maxim which had struck its roots deep 
into the hearts and consciences of men before Jesus Christ uttered 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



the divine charities on the mountains ; before the founders of the 
Academy taught the Athenians the precepts of noble Uving ; before 
Confucius, far remote in the denser obscurities of antiquity, illustrated 
the civilization of his time by the doctrines of peace on earth and 
good-will to men : 

Of the dead speak nothing but good. 

Eulogy of the dead is the consecrated privilege and duty of the 
living. This venerated custom of the House of Representatives — 
these appointed tributes to the memory of our associates who go out 
from among us forever to join the innumerable and eternal proces- 
sion, are not so shallow and artificial as to belong merely to the dull 
and spiritless dignities of a deliberative assembly. They are not 
rendered in obedience to the cold and stately aphorisms of philoso- 
phy. They have their source where is the richest and most exquisite 
nourishment of the virtues of human character — in the deeper sym- 
pathies of the human heart. 

But, Mr. Speaker, standing in the presence of the dead, were the 
sentiment " De mor/uis ni/ nisi donum" not an imperative intuition; 
were it not the common instinct of our common nature ; or were this 
the occasion for just and exact or critical estimate of character and 
conduct, I would still be able to speak of our deceased coworker and 
fellow-member, Frank Welch, nothing but good. 

Circumstances did not, permit my acquaintance with Mr. Welch 
to be that of intimate personal and social relationship. Amid the 
very large membership on this floor, and in the responsible and en- 
grossing duties of his constituents which press upon each of us when- 
ever this House is not in immediate session on affairs of public serv- 
ice, it is possible for one member to cultivate with few of his fellows 
the appreciation of many admirable personal traits, and to acquire 
with very few of them that closer insight into qualities of mind and 
heart which are developed in the habitual intercourse of friend with 
friend. 



ADDRESS OF MR. WIGGINTON ON THE 



But, sir, in the division of labor which the organization of this body 
requires for the accomphshment of its work, in the special division of 
duty to which our brother, so startlingly stricken from our midst, 
was assigned, I knew him well. We of the Committee of Public 
Lands all knew him with the most unhesitating confidence in and 
respect for his character and abilities as a man, and with a most cor- 
dial regard inspired by his genial and gracious temper as an associate. 
In the brief course of his parliamentary career, if he did not belong 
to the conspicuous few who compel our admiration for the brilliant 
intrepidity and force, alertness and power of intellect which achieve 
the leadership of tumultuous debate, he had yet taken his assured 
place among those who are marked for sturdy independence and 
self-reliance of thought, conscientious inquiry for truth, and a high 
standard of determination and action, qualities scarcely less valuable, 
though less resplendent, in him who serves the people in this Hall. 

Frank Welch came from one of the farther Western States, and 
in him was exemplified that strong type of manhood, courageous 
without display, inflexible but kindly, which belongs to the people 
who have prepare^ that vast territory lying midway of the continent 
to be the seat of political empire in this great Union of States. It is 
there where exists the most powerful identity of interest between the 
different sections of the RepubHc; it is there where is the greatest 
homogeneity, the closest amalgamation of the varying classes of 
American character; and there the American people find themselves 
most kindred. Within that great region the Pacific coast holds its 
fraternal clasp with the Atlantic borders; through its coalescing 
power the South must be made one with the East; in the broad sweep 
of that hardy and prolific interior are founded the mightiest and most 
enduring columns which support the Federal Union. Our deceased 
friend and brother was the representative of a people among whom 
the love of country is a plant of native and luxuriant growth ; a free 
and patriotic people of commanding physical and intellectual strength 



I liave spoken his warmest praise when I have said he was fit to 
represent such a people, and that he well and faithfully discharged 
his service to them. 

Mr. Speaker, the bolt which struck him down was a calamity to 
his household; of all bereavements the most terrible, because so swift 
and instantaneous. Within that sacred shrine of grief I do not enter 
but for a moment with bowed head and with sympathy for the sor- 
row thus denied the sad consolation of such holy memories as sur- 
round the death-bed of husband and father. Upon us of this Cham- 
ber this death fell with the shock which for an instant stills the pulses 
of the hving whenever death comes unheralded and unannounced. 
An hour ago, erect and vigorous manhood, warm hfe, sanguine 
health! Now, the prostrate form rigid in the embrace of death! 
Suddenly, in one moment, the grim monster stalks within this Cham- 
ber — has come, has passed, has gone ! Who next ? 

Why do I allude to these things ? Why in pronouncing some brief 
words of tribute to the honorable memoryof our departed friend and 
brother to be engrafted on the records of this body of v/hich he was 
an able and earnest member, do I suggest these reflections on the 
manner of his death ? Because, sir, I wish to be understood as ap- 
proaching the following thought with that awe and reverence which 
it befits mortals to feel when they contemplate that which lies be- 
yond this life. This so swift taking-off— this so sudden plunge even 
into the solemn mysteries which lie within the veil that hides eternity 
from mortal vision— is it to him for whom the message comes the 
least acceptable of all forms of death? I venture to think not. The 
ordeal must once be passed. A painless death is most to be desired. 
To die even while the senses are yet keen and the physical and 
mental powers able to participate with energy in the active duties 
and engagements of life is not a thought so repulsive that men should 
shrink from it with dread. 

Intense suffering may break down the will and repress the courage 



14 ADDRESS OF MR. PATTERSON ON THE 

of brave men, but the certain prospect of death often mspires with 
fortitude, something of that fortitude and constant purpose of mind 
which distinguished a chieftain known to fame wherever Scottish 
annals are read. Dying, the Bruce willed that his heart should be 
borne on a pilgrimage to the holy sepulcher, and to Douglas he in- 
trusted the execution of this religious command. In a southern 
defile that Scottish chieftain, accompanied by a small band of retain- 
ers of his own household, encountered a dense mass of hostile spears. 
To cut through that deep array not even Douglas might hope. But 
flight or retreat he scorned. Haltiiig for the charge, he unslung from 
liis neck the golden casket which contained the relic of his dead sov- 
ereign, and hurling it far over the outermost ranks of the enemy, his 
mighty voice rang out as with the slogan of bloody Bannockbawn — 

Go ! heart of Bruce, as was thy wont, into the very center of thy foes, and 
Douglas follow ! 

Our deceased brother possessed the noble characteristics of that 
chieftain who courted death in the performance of his promises and 
duty, as our brother met it. Could I .say more ? His memory must 
ever be cherished by those who knew him — most by those who knew 
him best. He lived so that he could meet death with all its conse- 
quences, as he did meet it, without notice. Would that all of us 
may so live. 



Address of Mr. Patterson, of Polorado, 

Mr. Speaker : I cannot but feel sad when I realize that death has 
stricken down in the vigor of manhood a steadfast friend. Between 
the departed and myself there were ties that could not well exist be- 
tween others. We stood upon this floor representing States whose 
borders joined, and each was without a colleague from liis common- 



LIFE AND- CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 15 



wealth to whom he could look for aid or sympathy in hours of trial. 
The history of our two States was almost a common one. Beyond 
the Missouri, within the manhood of the youngest member of this 
body, they have been seized from countless ages of silence and 
vacancy, and by the same class of people, exercising like courage, 
enduring like hardships, meeting and conquering like dangers, have 
been placed in the group of State republics that make up the model 
government of the world. 

Upon several occasions we had conversed upon the phenomena pre- 
sented in the representation of our States in the American Congress. 
In the less numerous body, representing the autonomy and equality 
of the States, these two younger sisters of the Republic were upon an 
equality with the oldest and greatest in the family; while in the 
greater body, representing the people, where greater difficulties are in 
the way of the individual member, they were accorded but one Rep- 
resentative. Many times, after we had been struggling before the 
committee or upon the floor for recognition of our needs and a con- 
cession of our rights, have we deplored to each other the small re- 
turns for our efforts so largely owing to the lack of strength which a 
numerous delegation gives to each member of it. 

I never met Mr. Welch to know him until the second session of 
this Congress. It was after I was assigned to the Committee on 
Pubhc Lands that our association commenced; and in the intimacy 
which committee duties beget I learned to admire the plain and strong 
manhood of the Representative from Nebraska. He was one of the 
few men of sterling merit, with sturdy and sensible views upon every 
public subject, with a vigorous individuahty, who are content to allow 
an entire Congress to pass without claiming the attention of the 
House beyond the few minutes necessary for the explanation of some 
particular measure vital to their constituency. 

In the committee-room his store of knowledge and clear views upon 
every phase of every question pertaining to our public lands made 



1 6 ADDRESS OF MR. PATTERSON ON THE 

him an oracle to us all. Educated as a civil engineer, serving for 
several years as a register of a land district in Nebraska, having trav- 
ersed the plains, the mountains, the parks and valleys of the vast 
interior of our continent, none was more qualified to advise upon any 
question pertaining to them. This fact every member of our com- 
mittee recognized; and if the measures which have passed into laws 
through the portals of our committee-room could speak, they would 
tell of his skillful workmanship upon every line. 

I met him last at the city of Omaha, on his way to his home at the 
close of the last session. He had preceded me by several days, and 
when I joined him he was buoyant with the anticipations of the 
future. His desire had been to be returned to the next Congress. 
Aspirants for his place had arisen during his absence, and before 
reaching Omaha he feared some one of them might be successful; 
but when we met that fear had vanished. In recognition of his val- 
ued services all competition had retired, and he felt assured of the 
coveted renomination without opposition. After we separated, the 
heat and absorption of the political campaign stopped communica- 
tion. During it he passed from earth, called by a voice that must be 
heeded, and that will reach the ears of us all only too soon. 

Mr. Speaker, I can truly say that I loved Frank Welch as sin- 
cerely as I ever loved one whom I had known for so short a time. 
He was a true type of the moral and heroic man. Without brill- 
iancy; laying no claim to forensic power; with nothing but his worth, 
his pluck, his energy, his moral uprightness, and recognized devotion 
to the welfare of the people of his State, he was»chosen by them as 
their Representative in the American Congress, and he was in truth 
the representative of all the manly virtues that have made his con- 
stituency men among men the wide world over. The commonwealth 
of Nebraska may send men of greater talent to this Hall; such may 
in the future give to her the fame that Clay has given to Kentucky 
or Webster to Massachusetts, but she will never send a Representa- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 17 



tive with more sincere convictions, a higher standard of manhood, 
or a greater devotion to his pubhc duties than were possessed by 
Frank Welch, the man to whose memory this House to-night pays 
tribute. 



;^DDRESS OF yVlR. JlPTON, OF JlLINOIS. 

Mr. Speaker: I desire to add my tribute of respect to the memory 
of Frank Welch, and to unite my sympathy with that of the people 
of Nebraska, who mourn the loss of a true citizen and Representative. 
At the meeting of the extra session of this Congress Mr. Welch was 
to me a stranger. I soon, however, formed his acquaintance, and 
from that time until his death we were true friends. Mr. Welch was 
modest and unassuming in his manners, and I apprehend that he 
formed but few acquaintances during his service in this House. By 
reference to the Congressional Record of the first session of this Con- 
gress we find that he was elected to the Forty-fifth Congress from the 
State of Nebraska as a Republican, and I have no doubt that he 
would have been re-elected to the Forty-sixth Congress had he not 
been stricken down in death. Mr. Welch was comparatively a 
young man; he was full of promise and full of hope. 

Born in the State of Massachusetts, in early life he took the advice 
of a great statesman and went West, settling in the Territory of Ne- 
braska. He loved his people, and the great aim of his political life 
seemed to be how best to advance the interests of the people of the 
State that he had the honor to represent. He was liberal in his views, 
yet firm for the right as he understood the right. His many virtues 
and acts endeared him to all who became thoroughly acquainted with 
him. Just at the close of the last session I had a long talk with him 
about his State and the labor of representing and looking after the 
interests of an entire State embracing such a vast territory and such 
varied interests, and it is to the constant strain upon his mind and 



3 w 



the constant fear that something would be left undone which ought 
to be done that I attribute, at least in part, his death. 

Mr. Speaker, I think I may truly say that Mr. Welch was a model 
man in many respects. In his motives and purposes in political life 
we read the advanced interests of a common country, and in his pri- 
vate life a kind husband, father, and neighbor. To some extent I 
was familiar with his purposes and hopes, and to say that he was not 
ambitious would be untrue; but, on the contrary, his great ambition 
was to represent his State with honor to the State and credit to him- 
self. He loved liberty, and believed that it could be best maintained 
by sound and wholesome laws judiciously enacted. 

Mr. Welch was not a man to become excited; he was careful, calm, 
and deliberate in all his purposes. 

Mr. Speaker, I shall ever cherish with pride my recollections of and 
acquaintance with Mr. Welch, and shall ever remember him as a 
true friend; and by a true friend I mean a man who is willing and 
in fact anxious to assist his friends at all times and under all circum- 
stances. Frank Welch loved liberty and hated oppression in all 
its forms, and in this he was the fit representative of the pioneer 
people who in behalf of freedom settled the Territory of Nebraska. 

I believe had he lived that his services would have been of great 
value to the people of his State. But Frank Welch is no more — 
stricken down in death in the very prime of life and the early morn- 
ing of his usefulness. It is well known by members upon this floor 
that a new member of this House quiet and unassuming as was Mr. 
Welch can make but little public demonstration at the first session 
or in fact in the first Congress, and that during the first session at 
least he would form but few acquaintances, and for this reason I feel 
that many members upon this floor did not form an intimate acquaint- 
ance with him during his service as a member of this House; yet I 
think I may safely say that those who did form his acquaintance 
regarded him as a high-minded and an accomplished gentleman. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 1 9 

Mr. Speaker, the number of deaths in this Congress has been the 
subject of comment and newspaper articles all over the land, yet we 
heed it not. Members come and go from this Capitol with the same 
unconcern that they would if death was unknown in the Republic. 
The world simply notes the fact. The death of Mr. Morton and of 
Mr. Bogy, two distinguished members of the Senate, and seven 
members of this House — Quinn, Welch, Leonard, Williams, Douglas, 
Hartridge, and Schleicher — at the close of this Congress will have 
passed into history. Their public services, however, have made an 
impress upon the country that will not be forgotten. The death-roll 
of the Forty-fifth Congress will ever be remembered by us as one 
remarkable in the world's history. It is but the repetition of the 
lesson that death is no respecter of persons or position in life. 

The great harvester comes and reaps withersoever he will. One 
generation passes away and in quick succession another follows. One 
man dies and another is ready to take his place. Thus in quick suc- 
cession does generation follow generation, so that it is impossible to 
discern the dividing line between the present and the past or the 
present and the future. 

Mr. Speaker, I regard as the most wonderful fact in all nature that 
it is not vouchsafed to man to know when, how, or under what cir- 
cumstances he will meet death. There is not a man in all this Re- 
public who, if he knew that within a certain number of years from 
this time he must meet death, would not, to some extent at least, 
determine to change his habits of life. Yet we know the fact that 
all men must die, and that many like Mr. Welch will be stricken 
down in the prime of their manhood almost without warning. 

On coming to this Capitol we behold, on Pennsylvania avenue, a 
funeral procession. We stop a moment and inquire, " Who is dead ? " 
We are told by a passer-by ; we again pause a moment and wonder 
at its magnificence and grandeur, and pass on. And before we reach 
this Capitol the fact is blotted from our memories, only to be recalled 



ADDRESS OF MR. TIPTON ON THE 



by the recollection of the magnificence of the procession. Again 
and again are we reminded that death is in the land, but we heed 
it not. 

That terrible scourge known as yellow fever during the past sum- 
mer converted great commercial cities into cities of mourning. Mov- 
ing commerce upon the streets gave way to the funeral procession. 
Almost one-half of this the fairest land on earth was dressed in 
mourning. But a few months have passed away, yet I fear this ter- 
rible lesson is fast fading in our memories. And when this generation 
shall have passed away, the fact will be read and known only by the 
student of medicine or the historian. 

The death-roll of this Congress is confined to no locality in the 
Republic, but on the contrary it reaches from the Hudson to the Rio 
Grande. Nine States of this Republic are in mourning for the loss 
of distinguished men, and the nation mourns the loss of the combined 
efforts for good of these men who have passed away. The great reaper, 
in the selection of his own, seems to have selected the noble ones of 
the assembled Representatives of the people. It is fitting that we, 
the members of this Congress, shaU ever cherish in our memories the 
kindest feelings for those who have died since its organization. 

Mr. Speaker, it is in this spirit that the Constitution throws its pro- 
tecting shield around the home of every man in the land. It is in this 
spirit that the Constitution binds the graves of these fallen Repre- 
sentatives under one flag and one government. It is this spirit that 
it is hoped will bind together the people of the Republic by a tie 
stronger than acts of Congress or constitutions. It is in this spirit 
that we hope to conform legislation of the country to the deliberate 
judgment of the people. It was this that Frank Welch hoped for. 
While it is true that he did not live to see all accomplished that lie 
desired, yet I believe he did live to see the commencement of the 
new era, the adjustment of all legislation to the demands and neces- 
sities of the people. It is my belief, as it was that of Mr. Welch, 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



that we have reached a period in human progress when just and hu- 
mane laws, honestly and fairly enforced, will meet the approval of the 
people in every part of the country. 

Mr. Speaker, I am one of those who believe that neither states nor 
republics are, in the long run, ungrateful. I believe that in this coun- 
try, sooner or later, in all cases, merit will receive its reward. In the 
case of Frank Welch it has been prompt. To-day Nebraska 
awards to him the honor of approval of his official acts, and the 
nation to-day tenders to his widow and children by these memorial 
services the heart-felt sympathy of the nation. 

I desire to place upon record to go down to history my judgment 
that he was one of the good men of this land; that every purpose, 
every object of his life was for the good of the people; that he had 
no motive, no purpose which in his judgment would injure any man 
on the face of this earth, but on the contrary his life was devoted to 
the good of all. 

While, as I said a moment ago, the Congressional Directory gives 
us no information as to any official positions that he held prior to his 
election to this House, yet I am advised that he had held important 
official positions in the Territory of Nebraska. I apprehend that the 
judgment of all who knew Frank Welch is that he was the noblest 
work of God — an honest man. 



/tDDRESS OF yVlR. pONGER, OF yVllCHIGAN. 

Mr. Speaker : It is with great pleasure that I find I have the op- 
portunity, although unexpected, to join on this occasion with my 
colleagues in paying a brief tribute of respect to the memory of one 
of our members who came among us for a short time and made him- 
self known to us in these halls during that brief period as a sterling, 
energetic, and faithful member of this House. 



ADDRESS OF MR. CONGER ON THE 



It was my fortune during most of the time that he was a member 
here to occupy a seat in the Hall so near him that I could observe 
the whole course of his Congressional life upon this floor. He was a 
constant attendant upon the sessions of this body. He was faith- 
ful in season and out of season in the performance of all the duties 
which might be required of a member of this House. 

When I parted with him at the close of the session prior to his 
death I little thought that he, so young, apparently so vigorous, so 
full of life and hope and ambition, moderated as it was by his innate 
modesty, would be the first to be called from our number to go down 
to the silent halls of death. 

I knew little of our friend's history. He was not communicative 
of his own personal history and of his own personal desires or ambi- 
tion. I learned that he was born in New England, and passed his 
youthful days in that city of our Union which claims for itself the 
highest rank in literary and scientific culture; that while young, just 
entering upon the active duties of life, pursuing, as I understand, his 
occupation of engineering, he passed from that Athens of America 
out westward and westward, crossing rivers, crossing States, going far 
on, seeking his home and a place for the development of his genius. 
The scene of his labors was in a new State, twenty years ago, per- 
haps then a Territory, in which there were few comforts or luxuries 
or refinements of life; a country then traversed in part by savage 
tribes; a territory over which roamed the bufialo in immense herds, 
as yet unscared by the presence of man. To such a region our young 
friend, in his ambition and his hope, went to find a home for himself. 
In a new land, amid scenes stretching out upon the broad plains of 
Nebraska, beyond the Mississippi, beyond the Missouri, he sought 
his home. 

Sir, if there be anything that is grateful to my mind in looking over 
the institutions of my beloved land, it is, that whatever may be the 
rank or sphere of life in which one is bom, under whatever circum- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 23 



Stances his early life may have begun, the goddess of these institu- 
tions takes every youth by the hand, gives him education, gives him 
hope, gives him courage, gives him emulation, and, above all, gives 
him the example of .a long and splendid line of illustrious men, from 
the very beginning of our government down to the present time, who 
like himself enjoyed no advantages of birth or education, no assist- 
ance of powerful and influential friends, but who have had solely the 
surrounding influences of these free institutions of our land, which 
extend to the humblest and the poorest the same help that they ex- 
tend to the wealthiest and the mightiest among us. These institu- 
tions bid the youth enter on that royal highway which education, 
which industry, which patient seeking may find out— that royal road 
to the hearts of his fellow-men, to distinction among them to office 
if office be his desire, to wealth if wealth be his ambition, to the 
means of doing good to his fellow-men if to do good to his fellow- 
men be within his heart. It is these institutions of our country that 
enable every child of the land to rise, if he will, to usefulness, to emi- 
nence, to high positions of trust, to the confidence and esteem of his 
fellow-men, as by far the larger number of our most distinguished 
statesmen, civilians, and lawyers have risen by the aid of these insti- 
tutions from poverty and obscurity to fill the most honored places 
within the gift of the nation. 

Mr. Welch was an example of the beneficial effects of such insti- 
tutions and such training. To him it mattered not whether he 
remained in the State of his birth, surrounded with luxuries, sur- 
rounded with culture, surrounded with all that could excite emulation 
and ambition in his heart, or whether he went off" to the broad prairie 
as the field of his labor, or to the great forest as the scene of his toil. 
It is enough for us to know that going off" into a far-off" land, and as 
I have learned going there a stranger with no one to uphold him, to 
introduce him, to push on his fortunes, he gained so far the good-will, 
the kindly feeling, the confidence of all the people of that Territory 



that they promoted him to places of honor and of trust, that they 
reposed in this young man a confidence which is rarely reposed in 
older, wiser, and more experienced men. 

I have met many people of that State; I have seen them here and 
met them elsewhere, and I never have heard any other expression of 
sentiment from any with whom I have been acquainted than that 
Frank Welch, their Representative in Congress, had the high es- 
teem, the absolute confidence, and the kindest regards of all the 
people of that State. 

Sir, Mr. Welch did not occupy in this House a position which 
some covet; a position of strife, and antagonism, and ambition to 
lead or to oppose. But his position was that of a patient, earnest, 
pains-taking worker— laborious, as I have been informed, in commit 
tee, in the examination of all questions submitted to him; earnest, 
as we all know, in every matter affecting the interests of the constit- 
uency he so ably represented. I think, sir, that amid all the disputes 
and wranglings within this Hall there is no member of this House 
that ever did or ever could entertain for a moment one unkind 
thought, ever did or ever could speak one unkind word, of our de- 
parted friend for anything and all things which he did or neglected 
to do in these halls. How few of us can say that of ourselves ! How 
few of us deserve that it should be said of us by others ! 

Mr. Speaker, our friend Mr. Welch, whatever he may have failed 
to do, however his ambition may not have reached its height, what- 
ever feelings he may have had in his spiritual experiences, could say 
of himself as Abou Ben Adhem said : " Then write me down as one 
who loved his fellow-men." Genial, warm-hearted, gentle, kindly, 
inoffensive, pleasant, and agreeable in all the relations of life, those 
who knew him were won to him by that loving, kindly, generous na- 
ture of his. He loved his fellow-men, and his fellow-men loved him; 
and many hearts were grieved, almost startled, when the news first 
reached them that our quiet friend had passed from among tlie liv- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



25 



ing and was numbered with those who had gone from these halls 
forever. 

I had not expected to have the opportunity to express my views 
and my sincere regard for our departed friend. Those who have 
known him through this life, those who are more intimately acquainted 
with his inner nature than myself, all describe him in language 1 
would like to describe him in. All speak of him in such terms of 
regret and kindness and affection as I have felt for him, and as I 
should like to describe my feelings in regard to him to-night. I have 
said these things because toward our friend I had all these kindly 
feelings and I would pay this passing tribute to his memory as that 
of a friend to a friend. 



Address of M.r. Wright, of J^ennsylvania. 

We know that moons shall wane 
And summer birds from far shall cross the sea ; 
But who shall tell us when to meet with death ? 

Our deceased friend was a stranger to me until I met him in this 
Chamber. I never knew him until I knew him in my relations with 
him on the Committee on Public Lands. As has ahready been said 
of him, he was faithful to the discharge of the duties which were in- 
cident to the work which was necessary to be done on that commit- 
tee. I supposed him a man of excellent health ; I believed that he 
was, and in my intercourse with him I never heard of any complamt 
with regard to any physical disability. But in his youth he was cut 
down; and why it is, sir, that men of the physical strength and power 
and youth and manhood of our departed friend should be called 
hence, when men like myself, who have reached their three score 
and ten, are permitted to live and move on, is one of the inscrutable 
things which the providence of God alone can reveal. 



4 w 



26 



ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 



I attended, Mr. Speaker, the memorial services of Henry Clay. 
They were conducted in the Senate Chamber. It was lon^ ago. I 
was present at the memorial services that occurred on the death of 
John Quincy Adams. It was long ago. But these men of whom I 
speak had reached the period that revelation says is the limit of men's 
life. They were rich golden sheaves that the reaper gathered up. 
Their time had come, and he had a right to exult in the bounty of 
the harvest that he had gathered. 

I was in this House, sir, when the memorial services were bestowed 
on that eminent and great man, Stephen A. Douglas. He, too, ac- 
cording to our mode and method of estimation of human life, went 
before his time ; but when he left this earth a great man had stepped 
out of the legislative and social relations of life, but not so prema- 
turely as our friend whose funeral cortege we are conducting now. 

I would like, Mr. Speaker, to have learned more with regard to 
the character of Mr. Welch than I know, because in my intercourse 
with him I found him a man possessing those traits of character 
which dignify and exalt human nature — qualities of the heart, sir, 
that after all is said are the standard by which we are to estimate 
not only human greatness but human perfection. 

I stood in the Thirty-seventh Congress at the same desk that I am 
speaking from now. A colleague of ours had died. He was a 
stranger to me. I knew but little of him, merely a speaking, casual 
acquaintance. My associates requested me to take part in the pro- 
ceedings which were to be had on that memorial occasion. I replied 
to them that I knew so little of the man I should not know what to 
state if I rose to speak on the occasion. It was remarked, however, 
that I was the senior member of the delegation from the State, and 
they expected me to say something with regard to the deceased. I 
sat in my seat, reserving the privilege of concluding what had to be 
said, and during the remarks which were made one of my associates, 
who had attended his funeral and burial, made use of the remark 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 27 

that the town in which he lived in Pennsylvania had literally turned 
out to hig funeral. The concourse was immense ; men, women, and 
children were about the bier of the dead man, and not only that, 
but there seemed to be a general feeling of woe throughout the little 
community in which he lived. They had all come to pay the last 
token of regard to Dr. Cooper, their Representative in Congress, 
who lay in the coffin before them. Upon that hint I rose and spoke. 
That furnished me with a theme, and it gave rise, sir, to this train of 
thought : that after all we must judge of a man's character and the 
excellency of his heart from the estimation in which he is held by 
the people who are about him and with whom he moves daily. If 
he has endeared himself to the people who were in close proximity 
to him ; if he has their praise and their regards and esteem, that is 
the standard by which we are to measure the qualities of the human 
heart, and esteem the human character. 

My friend, the eloquent John J. Crittenden, of Kentucky, occupied 
the third seat from where I stand now upon that memorable occa- 
sion. After the adjournment of the House, and in a conversation 
with me, he said : " My friend, you have taught me an important 
matter to-night." "Ah, sir; what is that?" "You have fixed a 
standard by which you measure human perfection, new to me, but 
which I shall remember to the end of my days." 

Now, sir, Mr. Welch was a man who had these amiable qualities 
which were calculated not to repel but to bring men to him. He 
sympathized with his big heart in the troubles and disasters and the 
strange state of things that exist in the country at this moment. 

Sir, in talking with him upon the subject of the distress of this land 
I have seen tears roll from his eyeS, but they were gems always from 
what you may call the great ebullition that comes from a full heart, 
and from a noble, generous mind, and from an exalted manhood. 

As has been said of him, he was not a man who took a prominent 
place in conducting the affairs of this House and the legislation that 



28 ADDRESS OF MR. WRIGHT ON THE 



was intrusted to him — not a prominent part ; but, sir, he had judg- 
ment ; he had discretion ; and he generally came to a correct con- 
clusion, as has been already remarked by the gentlemen who have 
preceded me, with regard to the nature of the business that he had 
in hand. 

He was not great, but, sir, he was good. Greatness without good- 
ness is a myth, 

A man may be a great statesman ; he may be a distinguislied gen- 
eral ; he may have commanded armies, and may have won triumph- 
ant victories ; he may be great as a philosopher ; he may be great 
in the. various and multiplied pursuits and occupations of life; but if 
he does not unite goodness with it he does not come up to my stand- 
ard of greatness. It is the heart that heals the woes of others that 
makes a great man in my estimation, in forming my opinion. 

If men could be great and good as were the two distinguished 
men whose images grace the walls of this Chamber, who are daily 
before you — great and good like them, then you may talk about 
human perfection, about greatness that only embodies the idea of 
self-elevation, or to occupy positions that shall command the admi- 
ration of the world. That greatness, sir, dwindles into insignificance 
and nothing compared with the man of charitable emotions and of a 
noble heart, that can reach and take in the whole woes of others. 

Sir, it affords me great satisfaction to speak in the manner in which 
I do and apply these great principles to the modest, retiring man 
who but yesterday was among us and, with us, but who now has left 
us forever. It elates me to talk in this way of one of my associates. 
I know that his heart was in the right channel; I know that his sym- 
pathies reached the great hum* family ; I know that no man felt 
more keenly the wants and necessities which exist through this land 
than the man whose memorial services we have met on this occasion 
to conduct. So much I learned with regard to our colleague here 
from an acquaintance of some four or five months, but having talked 



with him famiUarly, and having learned the bent of his mind, and 
the noble, generous heart that he possessed — having learned these 
things, you do not know how much I really regarded and respected 
that man while living; you do not know how much I feel this loss 
now that he is dead. 

He was not great in the sense of the word that we consider great- 
ness. He was good to a fault, and I hold him up — his exalted char- 
acter — I hold him up with regard to those kind qualities of heart, as 
a man whose course among us is to be followed as a model for imi- 
tation. 

We do not know men, sir, until we come in close contact with 
them. There may be many other men who are members in this Hall 
who come up to the standard that I have described. We do not 
know them. We come here as party men, and there is a space of 
some four or five feet between us that separates us. Will it always 
be so ? Is there no millenium — no political millenium ? We come 
here identified with party. We form our associates too often with 
our own party men, unless accident brings us in close contact with 
those of the opposite party, as accident in the line of my official duty 
here brought me in contact with Mr. Welch. 

I only wish I could be brought more often in contact with men 
differing from me in political affinities, if they could be the kind of 
men that this man who has left us proved himself to be. 

Now, sir, I have in this desultory way thrown out some few gen- 
eral ideas of my estimate of human character which was eminently 
possessed by our departed friend. If his life could have been spared 
it might have been for the benefit of mankind. But who is to say 
that the decree of God is not right ? Who is to take exceptions to 
it ? Who is to quibble at it ? 

These things occur around us daily, and we think of them, per- 
haps, but not so much as we ought. It is not within the scope of 
human intellect to answer the inquiries I have made. It is well that 



30 ADDRESS OF MR, CAIN ON THE 

it is not so, because otherwise it might produce effects that would be 
detrimental not only to the men who live but to the friends who sur- 
round them. 

I bade adieu in this Chamber to a friend who in life was very near 
to me. I hope that in the future these Halls may be filled with men 
who possess the heart, who have the ability, who have the judgment 
that he had who has gone hence forever. Peace to his ashes. 



yiiDDRESS OF yVlR. JCaIN, OF ^OUTH pAROLlNA. 

Mr. Speaker: Four years have passed since I first entered this 
Hall. During that time I have listened with deep feehng to the 
tributes paid here to the many eminent men that the insidious reaper, 
Death, has taken from our midst. It has never been my privilege 
until now to utter a sentence or a word in connection with the de- 
parture of any member of this House. 

At this time, however, I feel prompted to utter a sentiment in har- 
mony I hope with the sentiments which have been uttered by the 
distinguished gentlemen who have preceded me. I come to pay a 
tribute of respect to the departed dead. I come to mingle my sym- 
pathies and, if I may be allowed to say so, the sympathies of my race 
with your sympathies for the bereavements which this House of Con- 
gress has suffered, and which have befallen the States from whence 
came these departed Representatives. 

Men are known by their lives, and their labors furnish the best 
evidence of their worth to the communities from which they came, 
and the States they represented, and the nation whose citizens they 
were. The deeds, the labors of the distinguished departed, are to us 
the best evidence of their worth and their value. 

The gentlemen who have preceded me in these eulogies have aptly 
described the character and the services of him who has gone. It 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



31 



was not my pleasure to be familiarly associated with him on commit- 
tees of this House, or to have any intimate social relation with him 
other than as a fellow-member on this floor. But I regard it as but 
right, when death comes into this Hall, that each member should 
necessarily feel the bereavement. Each of us is reminded then there 
will come a time when we, like our fallen comrades, must take our 
departure. 

The fact that the State of Nebraska had trusted Mr. Welch with 
the care of her interests in this Hall is indeed one of the evidences of 
his value to that State and his worth to the people he represented. 
The labors which he performed upon the committees of this House, 
his deportment among his fellow-members, are the highest encomi- 
ums that can be paid to him and his worth as a Representative and 
a citizen. « 

The confidence which the State of Nebraska reposed in Mr. W^lch 
must indeed be to us the best evidence of the regard in which he was 
held at home, and of his value to the community in which he lived, 
of his moral and social worth to the State which he had the honor to 
represent here. The best evidence of his high value comes to us from 
the arduous labors in which he was engaged and the honorable man- 
ner in which he discharged all his duties. 

Mr. Speaker, in this Hall we all meet upon one common level. I 
therefore come, and I may be pardoned for the allusion, to present on 
this occasion the sympathy of a race of men who hitherto have had 
but little representation on this floor. I want the nation to know 
that those with whom I am identified, the constituency whom I rep- 
resent on this floor, feel a common sympathy with all that affects the 
interests of this great country. No member of this House can be 
smitten down by the hand of death but we partake of the sorrow 
which his loss causes the nation. 

When any one State loses an honorable represestative, the constit- 
uency that I represent feel a common sympathy with that State in its 



ADDRESS OF MR. CAIN. 



bereavement. When the nation suffers the loss of one of its great 
and good men, we as a part of that nation claim the privilege of pay- 
ing our tribute of respect and honor at the shrine of his memory. 

Sir, death is the common lot of all men; none too high, none too 
low but must pass in the same solemn train. It is ours as statesmen, 
as citizens, to recognize the importance of this great truth ; that what- 
ever may be the aspirations of men, whatever may be their attain- 
ments here on earth, there must come a time when their earthly career 
shall be cut short and they shall be carried to that bourne from 
whence none may return. 

Upon the altar of sorrow I come now to pour out my sympathy 
and the sympathy of those whom I represent. I come to tender to 
this nation the sympathy of a heart that feels whatever loss this na- 
tion may suffer, whatever loss a State may sustain. We join in 
common with our fellow-citizens in paying our tribute of respect to 
the memory of him who has gone, and of expressing our sympathy 
with the State and the nation in its loss, and to implore the blessings 
of Heaven upon all our common country. 

The resolutions offered by Mr. Majors were then agreed to unan- 
imously; and in accordance therewith (at nine o'clock and ten min- 
utes p. m.) the House adjourned. 



PROCEEDINGS IN THE SENATE. 



February 22, 1879. 
A message from the House of Representatives by Mr. George M. 
Adams, its Clerk, communicated to the Senate the intelligence of 
the death of Mr. Frank Welch, late a member of the House from 
the State of Nebraska, and transmitted the resolutions of the House 
thereon. 



February 25, 1879. 

Mr. Paddock. Mr. President, I call up the resolutions of the House 
of Representatives of respect to the memory of the late Hon. Frank 
AVelch, member of the House of Representatives. 

The Presiding Officer. The resolutions will be read. 

The Secretary read as follows : 

In the House of Representatives, 

February 21, 1879. 
Resolved, That this House has heard with profound regret of the 
death of Hon. Frank Welch, late a Representative from the State 
of Nebraska. 

Resolved, That the House do now suspend the consideration of 
public business, in order to pay proper respect to the memory of the 
lamented deceased. 

Resolved, That in token of regard for the memory of the lamented 
deceased the members of this House do wear the usual badge of 
mourning for thirty days. 



33 



5 w 




Resolved, That the Clerk of the House do communicate these 
resolutions to the Senate of the United States. 

Resolved, That out of further respect to the memory of the de- 
ceased this House do now adjourn. 

Mr. Paddock. I send resolutions to the desk to be read. 

The Presiding Officer. The resolutions will be read. 

The Secretary read as follows : 

Resolved, That the Senate receives with sorrow the announcement 
of the death of Hon. Frank Welch, late a member of the House of 
Representatives from the State of Nebraska, and tenders to the family 
and kindred of the deceased the assurance of sympathy under their 
sad bereavement. 

Resolved, That the Secretary of the Senate be directed to transmit 
to the family of Mr. Welch a certified copy of these resolutions. 



Address of ^VLr. Paddock, of J^ebraska. 

Mr, President : I little thought when my late colleague of 
the House sat near me here listening to the eulogies pronounced 
in the memorial service for the lamented Morton that only a few 
months would pass until I should be summoned to speak in liis 
funeral. Verily it hath been truly written, " In the midst of life 
we are in death." How often during the past year has this solemn 
admonition come to us. True, our own immediate brotherhood has 
been spared during these later months, but the shafts of death have 
fallen thick and fast among our brethren in the other House. One 
bereavement has followed another there in quick succession, until in 
very truth it hath become a House of mourning. 

Mr. President, I shall not delay the Senate by an extended memo- 
rabilia of our lamented colleague, Representative Welch. He was 
born on Bunker Hill, Charlestown, Massachusetts, February lo, 1835; 
was^graduated at the Boston High School, and afterward specially 



educated and trained as a ciyil- engineer. Soon after embarking in 
his profession the duties thereof called him into the West, and finally, 
while yet a very young man, in the year 1857, he established his 
home at Decatur, Nebraska. Mr. Welch was a gentleman in the 
highest and broadest sense of the term— kind, gentle, generous, manly. 
As might naturally have been expected for a young man possessing 
such qualities of mind and heart, he rapidly advanced to the front 
m society, and in affairs in his county and section. He was very 
soon chosen to represent his district in the council or senate of the 
Territorial Legislature, and a little later was elected to the senate of 
the first Legislature chosen under the State organization, of which body 
he was made the presiding officer. He. held other positions of honor 
and of trust under both the Federal and State Governments, and in 
1876 was elected a member of the Forty-fifth Congress. He repre- 
sented the largest Congressional district in the Union, both as respects 
territorial extent and population. He was alone in the other House 
from Nebraska — a State embracing an area of seventy-five thousand 
square miles, with a population of nearly four hundred thousand— a 
comparatively new State, having innumerable and varied interests 
in process of development, dependent largely upon Federal legisla- 
tion and Federal executive administration for encouragement and 
protection. 

There was put upon him the labor of three men, and by day and 
by night unceasingly he struggled through the protracted and excit- 
ing session ot last year to do it all. Mr. Welch was a man of great 
energy, industry, and pertinacity of purpose. He would do all re- 
quired of him although he should know the effort would cost kirn his 
life ; he did all, and as many another before him in like circum- 
stances had done, he went prematurely to his grave. When the ses- 
sion closed, Mr. Welch returned to his constituency very much worn 
and broken in health. He needed rest, but he took it not. At once 
he entered upon an active and an exceedingly laborious political 



36 



ADDRESS OF MR. PADDOCK ON THE 



canvass. His physical machinery could not endure the additional 
strain thus put upon it, and then the end came, soon and swift but 
pangless. In the evening of the 4th day of September, 1878, in a 
public meeting, in the midst of a numerous audience, composed 
largely of his political friends and admirers whom he was about to 
address, he was suddenly stricken and fell in instant death. His 
family — a fond mother, a devoted wife, and three loving children — 
were absent in a distant Eastern State, and no other of his kindred 
was present to close the eyes of him who thus in the prime of his 
manhood went down under a weight of life's burdens too heavy to 
be longer borne. 

Mr. Welch's re-election was assured, and but for the failure of 
health resulting in his premature death, a career of continually in- 
creasing honor and usefulness would surely have been his. As a 
Representative he was honest, sagacious, and faithful to his convic- 
tions. In his relations with his constituency he was just, fair, and 
impartial toward all parties, factions, interests, and sections. As a 
colleague he was kind, generous, and considerate. I had known 
Mr, Welch intimately during all his Nebraska life — nearly a quarter 
of a century — and I have the warrant that genuine friendship gives 
to speak of him. Standing before the bier upon which reposed his 
mortal remains, surrounded by his grief-stricken neighbors and friends, 
I declared in the sad ceremonial whence his body was born to its 
final resting-place, that during all these years of our intimacy Frank 
Welch had never to my knowledge, been guilty of an unkind, an 
ungenerous, an unmanly act. That declaration, sir, I here repeat. 
He scorned the low pursuits of malice. The ignoble sentiments of 
hatred and revenge found no lodgment in his breast, and moved him 
not even to retaliation for injuries, real or imaginary; while on the 
other hand every service, however difficult, every sacrifice, however 
painful, was cheerfully endured by him for the advancement, the 
protection of the interests of his friends. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 37 



Such a man was Frank Welch, and such, sir, is the measure of 
our loss. 

Mr. President, it was with no " hollow circumstance of woes," but 
as one sorrows for a brother lost, as a family in sackcloth mourns 
when the insatiate archer entering its charmed circle selects for his 
victim the favorite of the flock, that we, each and all, in the State he 
had loved so well and served so faithfully, did say peace and farewell 
to his ashes. At length they bore him from us, and now his ashes 
mingle with the soil of Massachusetts. To us, sir, who loved Frank 
Welch, and we all did love him; to us who labored with him from 
the smallest beginnings in the territorial time to the days of stalwart 
statehood for Nebraska, there is indeed left the bright record of his 
honorable citizenship, the proud monuments of his public service, 
the sweet memory of his personal graces, and of his frank and gen- 
erous nature, the valued example of his earnest life ; and these, sir, 
shall be ours evermore. Remembering this, sir, with such cheerful- 
ness and resignation as we could command, we responded to the 
appeal of maternal affection and returned to Massachusetts the mor- 
tal casket — broken and useless to be sure — which once had held this 
priceless jewel. On behalf of the young State whose institutions 
Frank Welch helped to mould, I send greetings and grateful ac- 
knowledgments to Massachusetts for the valued services of this her 
son in our upbuilding. But remember. Senators of that grand old 
commonwealth, his ashes are ours as well as yours. You received 
them from us with our love and our tears ; you gave them honored 
sepulture. Now guard them well, we pray you; for when the last 
trump shall sound, and they who died for liberty on Bunker Hill and 
the other patriots buried there shall then in glad obedience, come 
forth, no nobler spirit will appear than his whose life, commencing 
in that historic place, was mainly given to the work of development 
and civilization which resulted in the establishment of a free and 
prosperous commonwealth in the distant West, where only a little 



38 



ADDRESS OF MR. SAUNDERS ON THE 



time before the Indian, undisturbed, "pursued the panting deer," and 
"the wild fox dug his hole unscared," in a land where no white man 
had ever dwelt and the arts of peace were unknown. 



Address op JAr. ^aunders, of JTebraska. 

Mr. President : My colleague has left but httle, if anything, for 
me to say in reference to the life and death of our late associate, 
Hon. Frank Welch. His personal acquaintance with the deceased 
was longer and perhaps more intimate than mine, and especially 
prior to his entering upon his official duties as a Representative in 
Congress; I therefore left it to my colleague to give, as he has so 
tully and well done — more ably than 1 could do — more of the par- 
ticulars of the early business life and of the early trials and triumphs 
of our late friend. I had known Mr. Welch about seventeen years ; 
and from the time of his election to the House to the time of his 
death I was on intimate terms with him, and was strongly impressed 
with his uniformly amiable disposition, kindness of heart, courteous 
demeanor, and his unfaltering fidelity to his pubhc trusts. 

He was possessed of a warm, genial nature and an unrestricted 
flow of friendship for his fellow-man, which secured for him in life a 
popularity truly enviable. And now that an early grave has closed 
over him, the people of our entire commonwealth mourn over his 
departure as though it were that of some near and dear relative. 

The good and generous qualities of our human nature were blended 
in his character. He was resolute, courageous, and ardent in all of 
his pursuits. Unaided and alone he obtained place, and indeed was 
the architect of his own fortune. He came to Nebraska long before 
it was admitted into the Union as a State, and at once took part in 
giving shape to her public institutions and in preparing the Territory 
for the responsible position she was soon to occupy as one of the inde- 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



39 



pendent States of the Union; He represented his district for several 
sessions in the Territorial and State legislatures, and afterward held 
the arduous and responsible position of register of one of the United 
States land offices in Nebraska. Elected to Congress in the fall of 
1876 and dying before his term of service had expired, he was thus 
prematurely prevented from filling the measure of his own aspirations 
and the hopes of the people who had confided in him their trusts. 

There was much in the active life of Mr. Welch that might well 
be emulated by the youth of our country, and which illustrates the 
adaptability of our republican institutions to the development of 
genius and the noble ambitions and high aspirations of men when 
directed in the interests and for the benefit of his fellow-men. At 
the early age of twenty-two he left his New England home and, fol- 
lowing " the star of empire " with the compass and chain of the en- 
gineer, settled in Nebraska. And with an indomitable physical and 
intellectual energy, directed by great good sense and tempered with 
justice to all men, we have seen him rise from place to position until 
he stood an honored and useful member of Congress at large from 
the State of his adoption. To what higher eminence he might have 
attained in his brilhant career had he not been cut down in the bloom 
of manhood we can well imagine by the strong personal force with 
which he conquered success and the high esteem in which he was 
held by the people of his State. 

He was strong in his convictions of right, and a decided party man, 
but there was a kindness and benignity about him that like polished 
armor turned aside all feehngs of ill-will or animosity, and tended to 
disarm his opponents and turn them into friends. 

It is a phase in our political character— a phase to be lamented and 
deprecated — for party antagonism to assail the private character and 
misrepresent the pubhc acts of an official, and especially is this def- 
amation unguarded and severe in the excitement and heat of a polit- 
ical campaign. There are but few men in public position, however 



40 



ADDRESS OF MR. SAUNDERS ON THE 



chaste their lives, however pure their intentions, however disinter- 
ested their acts, who have not had hurled at them the poisoned arrows 
of partisan rancor. But the manly and generous qualities of our 
deceased friend were a shield to his character, and whatever may 
have been said against him in the heat of partisan anger was never 
cherished in the hearts of those who may have thus hastily spoken. 

His political course was short and successful ; labor and not words 
was what he relied upon for success; and no person, of whatever party, 
or hovrever much they may have differed with him in opinion, ever 
doubted his intentions or failed to admire his fidelity to his party and 
his friends. His zeal in the performance of his duty kept him steadily 
at his post; and no movement, either of order or business, failed to 
attract his attention. 

He was the first and only one of those who have been honored 
with a seat in the national council from the State of Nebraska who 
has departed hence for a world of peace; and yet he was the young- 
est of them all. He was cut down in the bloom and prime of his 
manhood, in the full possession of his intellectual powers, and has 
passed to that shadowy land from whence there is no return. 

Mr. President, the record of the tomb is fast filling up with illustri- 
ous names. In the providence of an all-wise God a number of victims 
greater than is usual have been snatched by the hand of the dread 
destroyer from the councils of the nation during the present Congress. 
In the course of a very short service in this Chamber it has been my 
sad experience to witness with sympathizing sorrow an unusual num- 
ber of occasions of this character, in memory of the departure of re- 
spected members of one or the other of the two Houses of Congress. 

How impressively sad this warning, reminding us of the mutability 
of human life, of how powerless the earthly hands of love to save, 
and verifying in this case the saying that "in the midst of life we are 
in death"! Let these frequent admonitions, so solemn and awful, 
find a deep place in our hearts who yet remain behind. 



LIFE AND CHARACTER OF FRANK WELCH. 



41 



Our late associate has gone hence, sir, but his memory will survive, 
embalmed in the hearts of those who knew him and appreciated his 
manly qualities. He died, as he lived, deserving and possessing the 
warm-hearted esteem.of many and the ill-will, I trust, of none. In 
private life in the State in which he lived he was respected, confided 
in, and beloved to a very remarkable degree; and I have never wit- 
nessed a community apparently more deeply impressed by the death 
of one of its number than in the exhibition of sorrow over the death 
of our deceased associate. 

The integrity of his character, the soundness of his judgment, and 
the kindness of his heart were well attested by the confidence and 
affection bestowed upon him in his life and the intense sorrow with 
which his untimely death was deplored. 

Let us commend the heart-stricken widow, the fatherless children, 
and the bereaved relatives and friends to the tender mercies and 
teachings of Him who doeth all things well, and who alone can heal 
the bruised heart and calm the whirlwind of grief in the afflicted 
soul. 

The Presiding Officer. The question is on agreeing to the res- 
olutions proposed by the Senator from Nebraska [Mr. Paddock]. 

The resolutions were agreed to unanimously. 

Mr. Saunders. As a further mark of respect to the deceased I 
move that the Senate do now adjourn. 

The motion was agreed to; and (at five o'clpck and thirty-eight 
minutes p. m.) the Senate adjourned. 



6 w 



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